Primary teachers

Mr Galloway was in the dinner hall to watch us. He’d prop himself, with his backside against the stage, because he’d only one leg. Because he had no desk he wore his tawse like a long brown tongue, over his jacket shoulder, ready to flick out, like an unsmiling Buddha.

‘Right, get the mats out,’ he’d say in his gravelled old voice.

The gym mats were piled up, one on top of another, two steps along the stage from him. Us boys would push and shove and pull at each other. We’d squeal in delight at being the first to get our hands on a mat. The others had to watch as two of us tugged one heavy mat down, to the far away end of the hall, near the door. Sometimes, the foam squares would come off in your hand and lie like chewed up snow on the wooden floor. The second mat went in the middle of the room. The last mat went near to Mr Galloway. Nobody played on that.

Unleashed. We’d tumble our wilkies and do all kinds of tricks that had never been performed before, whilst sneaking a look at the stupid girls, playing with their stupid skipping ropes, and looking to see if they were watching to see how good we were. There were no balls, in case you broke one of the dinner hall windows. There were a couple of feathered shuttle-cocks, but no bats. There were plenty of cloth bean bags- red, yellow, blue, green- enough for everyone, except the girls. You could fling them, head them or even play football with them, but not too near the windows, or Mr Galloway would look at you.

‘Right, get the mats in,’ Mr Galloway would say, all too soon.

Nobody wanted to get the mats in now. We’d edge away from them as if they were unchained dogs. But Mr Galloway just picked the two boys closest to him.

‘You and you,’ he’d say, because he never knew our names, ‘get the mats in’.

The mats were too heavy now. The boys that were picked would drag them like carcases into the corner of the room and pile them up as best they could.

Mr Galloway had taught us physical education. Our treat was finished for that week. Mrs Boyle would appear in the dining hall around that time. She’d clap her hands loudly and we’d quickly move toward the pillars at the swinging exit doors.

‘Twos,’ Mrs Boyle would say.

We’d take our best friend, in the world, for that week’s hand, while Mrs Boyle counted us, like sheep. She would take Noel Behan’s hand, in case he bolted for it. She wouldn’t have needed to run. She could catch you with her raised voice. She always said every word cleanly and clearly, with every syllable elongated like ivory fingers, that grabbed at your ear. Not listening, was not an option, Mrs Boyle allowed in her long teaching career. Mrs Boyle, in her scratchity two piece tweed suit, with ivory beads around her neck, to emphasise that she was female, could move with the surprising speed of a roused bear, to tower above you, if provoked.

Mrs Boyle’s great discovery was the 15 inch wooden ruler. She could flick you with it and hit you on the wrist with it, or hit you on the hand with it. She could do all these things, because we were too young to get the belt properly, unless we really needed it, like Noel Behan.

Unable to look away I’d watched that performance as Mrs Boyle held onto Noel Behan’s wrist and belted his other hand, for the first time, with the tawse. He hadn’t cried, but howled. Tears and mucus merged to create a viscous green sheen on his face. Like a bird that had been pinned to the ground by its wing, he moved in ineffectual half circles. Jobbies ran out of his shorts and trickled down his soiled leg, the weight of it pushing his school sock down. It sat, the wrong shape and colour, on his black shoe. The smell made Noreen Killeen gag and choke and be sick on the floor, so that the janitor had to come later and clean it with sawdust, which wasn’t so bad. Mrs Boyle had been disgusted with Noel Behan and his filth and his carry on. She ordered us, as she ordered each new day, with prayers and the sounds of time tables. I knew something like happiness, knowing it was him and not me. Not me. I was a good boy.

We followed Mrs Boyle out of the dinner hall in a crocodile, with the two twins, Rosemary and Tracy, peeping demurely from beneath golden fringes, like two Christmas angels, at the back. The other class waited, impatiently, lined up against the other outside wall, to get into the hall.

Behind us, we could hear Mr Galloway shouting:

‘Right, get the mats out.’